The Teenage Prayers

The Teenage Prayers are a good band. Check out their website and songs. Just heard a show at Pianos. They have songs that stick in your head. But what sticks is not the song as it sounds when they play it live, but rather a stripped out, melodic version, heavy on the lyrics and rhythm changes. I don't know if that's a function of me, or if that's rather instead the ideal state of the song. It could be an important question: the band has a rock and roll edge to it, while the songs are rather sui generis, I can imagine them as orchestral events, smoky jazz tunes, country for sure, etc.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a band that could flip through all these types of music to find out where the best fit is?

I have other notes also: Goodbye Baby. Is there a redundancy between what the guitar plays and what the organ plays? What opportunity does this present? If this song is reorchestrated to allow for more freedom in the guitar, a continuous background solo, what does this suggest for the orchestration of the band?

I am bored because I have heard all the songs before, and now each show sounds very much like the last? Do I prefer a "live" band, a risk taking band?

Should there be a stronger emotional arc to the set- an arc I feel is lacking right now?

Intersong dynamic range is still, in my mind, too low. some songs come down to nothing, but there still needs more ebb and flow.

The lyrics are great: how do you get this same lyricism of voice in the instruments? As Remy said a year ago: your band is only as good as the musicians in it. Should one of the songs be given to another band and see what happens?

that and more.